While Kincora Copper is hard at work advancing its numerous copper-gold targets at its brownfield Trundle project, mining technology expert Earth AI is doing the heavy lifting at the Cundumbu project.
Kincora Copper’s (ASX:KCC) exploration partner Earth AI has commenced reconnaissance work on the Cundumbu project, which is strategically located in Australia’s most important porphyry region – the Macquarie Arc in the popular Lachlan Fold Belt (LFB) of NSW.
The project is located in the world-class Molong Belt, 30km south of Alkane Resources’ (ASX:ALK) 14.8Moz Northern Molong Porphyry project and 70km north of Newcrest’s flagship +90Moz Cadia mine Mining (ASX:NCM).
The pair announced the partnership based on success in October last year, with Earth AI agreeing to spend up to $4.5 million over two years to generate and drill potential targets at the Cundumbu project.
The upside for Kincora is that it doesn’t have to spend a cent on the project for the next two years, with the option to extend that deal for another year if Earth AI likes what it sees.
Earth AI saw an opportunity to tap the $450 billion tech metals market, of which copper is a key metal for electrification, to help accelerate major discoveries and accelerate the transition to clean energy.
The company’s proprietary, vertically integrated cloud computing and machine learning review process and built-in geological artificial intelligence (AI) is designed to be 50 times more accurate and half the cost of other methods exploration
The reward for the Earth AI after making a new discovery and completing at least 1500m of diamond drilling is a net smelting royalty of up to 3% in an agreed area around the discovery.
“As Kincora focuses on testing our 13 existing copper and gold discovery opportunities within our NSW project, it’s nice to see Earth AI in the Cundumbu project field,” CEO Sam Spring told the investors
“Earth AI has applied its proprietary cloud-based AI and machine learning technology to generate targets that are now being verified by its senior geological team.
“This program of reconnaissance work will assist, confirm and refine target evaluation ahead of a planned drilling program using its in-house diamond drilling rig based in Young, NSW.”
Previous exploration at Cundumbu included mapping, soil sampling, rock chip sampling, induced polarization, gravity and magnetic geophysical surveying, with more limited tracking auger, reverse circulation and diamond drilling.
Mineralized monzonitic intrusions have been identified at both the Bell and Andrews prospects, north and south respectively of the project, located more than 10 km apart.
Exploration efforts were last led by Mitsubishi Materials Corporation during an earnings period ending in 2015.
Bell, the most advanced prospect, has witnessed both reverse circulation and diamond drilling, which intersected high-grade molybdenum in multiple holes, returning a maximum strike of 4m at 0.17% from 168m.
Molybdenum prices hit 17-year highs earlier this year, with the commodity produced as a byproduct of porphyry copper mining, another part of the market seeing big gains on optimism ahead of the recovery post -Covid in China, the largest consumer of copper in the world.
Global production of molybdenum is usually around 300,000 t per year, mainly for the steel industry and used in things like engineering steels, superalloys, chemical compounds and lubricants.
And, like copper, there isn’t enough supply to keep up with growing demand, which makes it interesting for Kincora.
“We look forward to seeing these goals move forward and benefit from Earth AI’s proprietary exploration approach that aims to improve the success rate and turnaround time for making the discovery of new deposits needed to support the electric vehicle and renewable energy revolutions,” Spring said.
This article was developed in partnership with Kincora Copper, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publication.
This article does not constitute advice on financial products. You should consider getting independent advice before making any financial decisions.
